I need help!! ASAP - Crashes to Desktop

[beccaboo105]

I'm not quite sure if this would go under technical help but anyway,

I recently downloaded a house from the sims exchange (the proper website)
It came with a load of furniture from different sites, like aroundthesims. A couple of times now, when I play it the game suddenly exits, the screen just turns black and then it's just my normal pc background and stuff.

What do you think has caused it and how can I sort it out before it gets out of hand.

Thankyou

[Swede1992]

Do you know whether the house was made by mods or weird third party custom content? (I know that it's against the rules to discuss them, but I'm going to bend them a little for now since it can clearly be the culprit)
If this is possible to have occured, I'd say you should delete the house and everything that came with it and see if it helped. Otherwise, make a clean re-install; there are tips and instructions in the sticky threads in Technical Help, but let's first see if somebody else can come up with something.

The other thing I can imagine is that it may have glitched up during installation, where I'd also suggest you should see if it helps to get rid of it.

Then again, the problem may be unrelated, but start with the above suggestions.

[Pam]

My first suspect is the content of the house, too.  It sounds like third party content is involved and it could be botching up your game.  Try deleting the house and everything in it from the Installed Content button on your game launcher.

[beccaboo105]

Thankyou, I'll try that out!

I just hope it works because I think I may have used up all the installs on my game, I have had to re-install everything on my computer twice now due to virus's.

[Pam]

I can't speak for online downloads of the game, but if you have the physical disk, you aren't limited to a certain number of installs.  You can install it as many times as needed.

[Saltypaws]

It is just an opinion, but I would not download anything anymore unless you know for sure about the content.  Not only is CC not good for your games, but some people have a virus that they may not know about and then your computer gets infected.  Of course there is always a risk of infection no matter where we go on the internet, but at least we can reduce the risk by being careful of what we download. 

[beccaboo105]

I can't speak for online downloads of the game, but if you have the physical disk, you aren't limited to a certain number of installs.  You can install it as many times as needed.

Ohh, well I hope so!

It is just an opinion, but I would not download anything anymore unless you know for sure about the content.  Not only is CC not good for your games, but some people have a virus that they may not know about and then your computer gets infected.  Of course there is always a risk of infection no matter where we go on the internet, but at least we can reduce the risk by being careful of what we download. 

Yeah Thanks! I wouldn't normally but just once I decided to get the house and I just assumed that the content would be safe because it was on the official website.

[Pam]

Unfortunately, the Exchange on the official Sims 3 website is one of the worst offenders for hosting lots that contain unsafe third party content.

[Saltypaws]

I know, it is very tempting to download those gorgeous houses that we don't want to build ourselves, me included, but I just don't do it.  I think  I downloaded one or two houses last year when the game first came out, but that was it.  I have downloaded all of the members houses though, I know those are safe.

[beccaboo105]

Try deleting the house and everything in it from the Installed Content button on your game launcher.

I deleted the house fine but all the CC furniture that was in my game is still there and I can't delete it (the in-game delete button won't work and the content doesn't show up in the game launcher. Is there a way to delete everything?

[Pam]

It should be showing up under Installed Content on the launcher.  I'm sure there's a way to also delete it from the actual game files, but we need someone more technical than me to give you instructions.

[beccaboo105]

I got that sorted, Thanks for the help!

Hopefully it will work, fingers crossed!